A Novel Compound from the Phenylsulfonylpiperazine Class: Evaluation of In Vitro Activity on Luminal Breast Cancer Cells

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common cancer in women, and is characterized by its histological and molecular heterogeneity. Luminal BC is an estrogen receptor-positive subtype, with varied clinical courses. Although BC patients are eligible for hormone therapy, both early and late relapses still occur, and thus there is a demand for new cytotoxic and selective treatment strategies for these patients. In the present study, inspired by the structure of phenylsulfonylpiperazine, a series of 20 derivatives were tested in bioassays against MCF7, MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-453 BC cells to discover new hit compounds. After 48 h of treatment, 12 derivatives impaired cell viability and presented significant IC₅₀ values against at least one of the tumor lineages. Overall, the luminal BC cell line MCF7 was more sensitive to treatments. Compound <b>3</b>, (4-(1H-tetrazol-1-yl)phenyl)(4-((4-chlorophenyl)sulfonyl)piperazin-1-yl)methanone, was the most promising, with IC₅₀ = 4.48 μM and selective index (SI) = 35.6 in MCF7 cells. Compound <b>3</b> also presented significant antimigratory and antiproliferative activities against luminal BC cells, possibly by affecting the expression of genes involved in the epithelial-mesenchymal transition mechanism, upregulating E-Cadherin transcripts (<i>CDH1</i>). Our findings suggest that phenylsulfonylpiperazine derivatives are potential candidates for the development of new therapies, especially those targeting luminal BC.